Only 10% of serial numbers on money were recorded

unless they simply recorded a stack of bills and randomly added them to the counting/wrapping pile.
you know, like smart feds would

10% was a hell of a lot more than just the top bill on each stack unless you think there were 4400 stacks of bills.

The stacks were poured out and rearranged about five times during the film. There was absolutely no way to distinguish any of the stacks, even if by some miracle they did record the serial numbers of only the bills on top (which I doubt they did).

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It seemed to me he overreacted.
Yeah, probably not a good idea to walk into a local bank and try to deposit 10 stacks of those $100 bills.

But why couldn't they have traveled around the country and exchanged them for smaller denominations over a drawn-out period? Or used them to make anonymous purchases of stuff at places that would be unlikely to be checking serial numbers?
They wouldn't be able to get the full value of all the bills, but they could still enjoy having a bit more money.

But, of course, his reaction was based on more than just that. He had finally realized that money was the root of all evil, corrupting the morals of the people he most cared about and destroying their lives. Even if it was for just one $100 bill, it wasn't worth it.

I want to know how recording the serial numbers actually helps.

If someone spends a recorded bill at a grocery store, who is going to know? Is every merchant in the country given a list of recorded serial numbers and mandated to check every incoming bill against that list? That doesn't sound very practical.

By the time someone picks it up, it will have changed hands so many times. Even if the FBI locate where the bill is and who deposited it (let's say a grocery store). How is that grocery store going to remember or be able to check who gave them that bill? It could have been any customer.

I would have just taken every bill I intend to spend to any merchant and asked if I could exchange the $100 for smaller denominations because I need change.

I think they could have waited and gone all over the country spending small amounts. Do banks look for the serial number? And when would they look? I think burning the money was a waste. But again, as someone else said, it was more a metaphor on money being the root of his problems and he wanted to get rid of it.

He was maybe tired like his brother.

We thought he was the thinking man but after his brother and father he was just tired.

But they could have moved around and not been found at all, like she says South America with 4 milllion.

Go to Vegas blow a load, win a load and move. This is 1998, I assume dollar serials were only counted by banks?

And its pre-internet. Not to say computerisation is not involved but its not as tight as it would be today.

Films back in the day used scaremongering about computers, technology and internet linkages when it was pretty much garbage.

I know places like doctors surgeries and tax & income offices in the UK government ran that still used paper documentation into the 2000s until everything was sorted out, and i bet while sorting happened a lot of stuff was ditched, misplaced and swept off the floor into a bin.

I used to work in a doctors surgery and handled all the paper medical files and my girlfriend worked in the tax office and got moved to the warehouse where all the paper stuff needed sorting out and they couldn't give a crap because they were paid low wage and they were not perfect robots putting everything in place perfectly.

Some coffee stains here and there smudging the numbers up. If they even got filed correctly or at all by a minimum wage, 18 year old Data in-putter with a hangover from last nights party.